


the first punch

by devoidofcolors



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Friends, Elementary School, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Family Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-11 13:49:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20154634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devoidofcolors/pseuds/devoidofcolors
Summary: Minhyuk moves to another city with his mother after his parents' divorce and as soon as he enters his new school, he has to deal with the harrassment of one of his classmates, Jooheon. But one day he decides to fight back and this will lead him to find out that he and his enemy have more in common than he thought they would.





	1. 1

_ **part one** _

**1**

The inevitable epilogue couldn't have been anything but a punch in the face. Everyone would have expected Minhyuk to be the one to receive it but somehow he ended up being the one throwing it. It felt unexpectedly good to take revenge, although that wasn't the real reason why the fight had started in the first place. The bad part was the punishment that came with his action. He didn't care much about the punishment itself since he knew he deserved it for having resorted to violence, but rather about the fact that, in order to solve their issues once and for all, the teacher had come up with a constructive solution to put an end to the war between Minhyuk and his “victim”. The parents of both had also agreed that it was the better approach. So there he was now, stuck in a room with the kid he hated the most in the whole world, forced to co-operate with him on the writing of a play the class would have to perform at the end of the school-year.

The deal was for them to spend one hour every day after class working on the play but after a week it became clear enough that Jooheon had no intention to help him whatsoever. He would simply nod at each and everyone of Minhyuk's suggestions but he would barely say anything. He sat there reading his comic books or looking out of the window. Every reproach coming from the other was blatantly ignored. Since they weren't supervised during that time they spent together, he wondered why Jooheon didn't leave right away and go back home and when he asked him a couple of days before, he answered with a shrug claiming that he had nothing better to do anyways.

That day Minhyuk thought hard to finally come up with something that would satisfy the teacher so that he would be freed from the task and not have to spend a second more alone with his enemy. He also pondered about finishing the work alone at home. He didn't want to waste any more time on it but if it helped him getting away from that hour he had been forced to spend with Jooheon, it would be worth it.

When his classmate noticed the fast speed at which the other's pen was scribbling on the paper, he quickly lifted his eyes from the volume he was reading that day and asked him what he was doing, the tone of his voice sounding unusually worried.

“I'm trying to finish the work.”

“But we should write it together.”

Minhyuk stopped writing to look up in the other's direction. He had a pout on his face and suddenly he felt the urge to punch him again.

“What are you sulking about?” he spilt out, outraged. “You haven't been giving me a hand at all and now you're the one who's offended because I'm doing the task on my own?”

Jooheon looked down at his lap, nervously scratching his nape. “It's just that I don't want to finish writing it so soon.”

Minhyuk stared at him with big eyes, not sure about what he had just heard coming out from that boy's mouth. “What? Why? I'm pretty sure you hate this as much as I do. I can't stand being in the same room as you. Should I remind you that I got punished because of you?”

Jooheon had lifted his head and was looking at him again, fiercely. Here they were, fighting again. “You were the one who punched me!”

“I was just defending Kihyun from you!”

“It was none of your business!”

“It was because Kihyun is my friend! And I hate bullies like you!”

Enraged, Minhyuk stood on his feet, ready to fight him again but Jooheon remained sit. He didn't have any intention to start another brawl. He sighed and suggested the other he calmed down unless he wanted to make the period of detention longer – and it was already long enough since the teacher had told them they would have to keep meeting until the script was completed. “You don't want this one hour to become two or more, do you?”

The kid sat down again, turning away from his classmate and refusing to look at him.

“Why are you being so rational now? You're always such a rascal in class.”

It was true that Jooheon was the definition of problematic child. He was always disturbing teachers and classmates during lessons, he had terrible grades and often he got aggressive. Minhyuk had had to change school at the beginning of the school year because he and his mother had moved to a new town after his parents' divorce. It was difficult for him to fit in being the new kid arriving in the last year of grade school and his shy personality didn't make things any easier for him. Nor did Jooheon who had started harassing him from day one. Sometimes it was insults, other pranks, other he would get more violent. Minhyuk had hated him from the first second and he felt proud when finally he had stood up not only for himself but also for Kihyun, the only friend he had made in class, when he had seen Jooheon and his gang threatening to throw his backpack down the window. He never meant to punch him but for some reason he couldn't keep his anger in.

What had struck Minhyuk though was that they had been alone in that room for days without fighting. Jooheon was still the same in the morning, when the teacher and their other classmates were still in sight. But as soon as it was just the two of them, he immediately turned docile. The shift in personality was almost scary. He looked like a totally different person and Minhyuk started to wonder which was the real Jooheon, although he didn't dare to ask.

“Can we make a deal?”

Minhyuk shook his head, firmly. “I don't make deals with bullies.”

“What if I showed you that I can be a good kid?”

Minhyuk still wasn't facing him but he was all ears now. “Can you?”

“Yes. I won't act like a bully anymore. At one condition.”

“What?”

“Promise me we'll take our time on this play.”

“Why?”

“Just say yes.”

Minhyuk didn't understand what was going on. He didn't understand Jooheon's request but above all, he didn't understand why he himself felt so willing to accept it. He turned his body to look at his enemy again. Looking at his face, he noticed his eyes were pleading him. He coulndn't help but stretch a hand to seal the deal but not before having determined one condition himself.

“I'll do as you want but you also have to do something for me. You have to apologize to the people you've hurt. Say sorry to the teacher too.”

Jooheon hesitated a bit before finally making up his mind and shaking the other's hand.

“Well, you should be the first then. I'm truly sorry.”

Minhyuk seemed satisfied and he couldn't help but smile. Jooheon did to and the dimples that appeared on his cheeks were the cutest thing Minhyuk had ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, there!  
I had four versions of this story but apparently I didn't believe in it enough because I deleted all of them months ago  
however, since I wanted to write something about joohyuk at school, today I remembered about it and recovered it from the bin  
I'm kinda glad I did 'cause re-reading it, I really liked it, so I decided to start working on it again  
I've written just the first two chapters for now so I'm going to publish them both, hope you've enjoyed this and you'll enjoy the next too!


	2. 2

**2**

From that day on, Jooheon's personality in the morning conformed to the one he had been showing Minhyuk when they were alone. Everyone was shocked when he apologized for his past behaviour and his metamorphosis brought an overall peaceful climate to the classroom, since his gang gradually started to lose interest in their mischieves as soon as they saw the change in their friend. Considering the timing, everyone assumed that Minhyuk had had something to do with his transformation since they had been spending time together after class. However, he never said a word about their deal and kept on claiming that he and Jooheon were still enemies after all. Or so he believed.

If they weren't foes, at least he was sure enough that they couldn't be considered friends. Not only did Jooheon stop bullying him but he stopped talking to him altogether. In class it was as if he wasn't even there and in the hour they spent together after that, both of them spent that time minding their own business. Every now and then Minhyuk would put down an idea for the play, like a character's name or something of the sort, but he had promised Jooheon he wouldn't write anything on his own, so he just patiently waited for him to finally tell him they could start working on it together for real. Minhyuk didn't want to rush things, afraid that Jooheon would start acting crazy again. Two weeks went by after the deal but nothing happened.

One afternoon Jooheon surprised Minhyuk when he suddenly started to talk to him.

“I think I have an idea for the play.”

Minhyuk jumped up from his seat and the book laying open on his lap fell to the ground. “Really? What is it? Can we start writing?”

“I said I have an idea, not that I'm willing to tell you just yet.”

Minhyuk sighed, recovered his book from the floor and threw himself again on the chair with a loud thud. “Predictable.”

The rascal smirked and as usual with the smile came the dimples. Although Minhyuk would never say it out loud, he was head over heels for them. He had never seen dimples that deep on anyone ever. He had barely noticed them before because Jooheon usually smiled nastily over some dirty thing he had done and he could only focus on the hatred he felt for him. But now that the naughty boy was gone, they had become his obsession. Sometimes when he was bored in class, he would turn his head to look at the other boy, whose desk was right across his, and he would just stare, hoping to see them again. Jooheon didn't even have to smile that hard for them to naturally appear so Minhyuk was able to enjoy the sight quite often. Also the fact that he had to spend extra time with them after class didn't bother him anymore.

In any case, Minhyuk was still curious about the reason why Jooheon didn't want to go home right after class instead of spending one idle hour with him at school. He still couldn't grasp the meaning of the pact they had made and he was intimidated by the other, scared that the wrong question would make him eat his words and start causing trouble again. Also, Minhyuk didn't want to give up on those sweet dimples just yet.

“By the way, thank you for keeping up with me.”

Minhyuk opened his eyes wide at those words. He wanted to answer kindly but words came out harsher than he had intended to. One part of him still couldn't forget about Jooheon's past actions. “Well, you've basically threatened me.”

“Right. But you could've just told the teacher, yet you didn't.”

“You looked like you really needed it when you asked me to make that deal... I'm not sure why though.”

Jooheon looked at him with the saddest expression on his face and Minhyuk felt his heart sink in his chest. “What is it, Jooheon? Why did you ask to make the deal?”

He took some time before answering but he felt that he owed the other an explanation. “I don't want to go home. I want to spend as much time as possible away from there.”

Minhyuk wasn't expecting this at all. He could have never imagined that Jooheon had something going on with his family. Just like him. “Why?”

“My parents don't care about me. They've never even scolded me. They've heard about me causing trouble at school continuously and yet they've never said a word of reproach. They just let me be. And I hate it.”

“Have you been acting like that on purpose?” He nodded. “Is that why you acted normal when they teachers weren't around? You just wanted your parents to pay attention to you?” He nodded again.

“I know it wasn't the right way. When I had that fight with you it made me so mad that they accepted the teacher's idea without even thinking about it. They weren't even angry after finding out why you hit me. They didn't want to have to deal with me. Now I don't care anymore. I was tired of playing the part of the bad kid anyways. I started to feel guilty about it.”

“Well, obviously...”

Jooheon didn't mind that remark much and continued to look at Minhyuk with the eyes of an abandoned puppy. Minhyuk could tell that he was being honest and the resent he had felt towards him gradually started to fade away. He couldn't help but sympathize with him because he understood what it meant feeling that your parents don't care about you. One of them at least.

Jooheon kept going on with his confession, as if he needed to pour out everything he had kept bottled inside in that exact moment because he had finally found someone who would listen. “You know, I usually go around alone a lot. After classes are over, after I say goodbye to you, I don't go back home right away. I just take walks, go to the basketball court, eat out. My parents never see me before 10 or 11 pm. It's been like this for a year... maybe more.”

Minhyuk opened his eyes wide and gaped at the other boy for a while, then expressed his shock and concern through words. “They don't know where you are? Don't they worry? You're just, what, twelve? You're still a kid!”

Jooheon just smiled at him, sadly, as if wanting to say that no, they didn't care that he was just a child, roaming around the city until late at night without them knowing where he was or who with. Minhyuk started to wonder whether this was also the reason for some of his behaviours. Who knew who thaught him violence, for one. And if it was true that he always came home late, possibly that was also the reason why he didn't study and always failed at school, apart from wanting to show his parents that something was going utterly wrong in the way they were raising him. And there was something wrong in it, without a doubt. Minyuk was outraged at the idea of a mother and a father being so careless about their own son. He was mad at them for hurting him and he started to think he wanted him to be away from them, protect him and give him the attention he didn't receive from them.

“Look, if you don't want to go home, you can just come to my place.”

Jooheon gave him a puzzled look, not really sure what the other meant. “What are you saying?”

“I mean... I don't like the idea of you being out on your own. Maybe now you're used to it but it's not good for a kid to be out on the street alone until so late. If you just need to stay away from your house, you can hang out with me. We could play games together, even study together, and finally write this play. My mum could make dinner for you, too. What do you think?”

Jooheon gave up the disbelief for laughter. Minhyuk wondered what was so funny about his proposition. “Basically, you want to adopt me?”

Minhyuk thought about it for a bit. It really sounded like he was asking him to go live with him and his mother, just without bed and breakfast. But he really believed it was a good idea, so he innocently answered yes. Jooheon burst into laughing but he was actually interested. After all, he would keep on avoiding his house anyways and he wouldn't have minded having some company in the time being. Also he was pleased that the other boy had decided to forgive him to the point of making such an offer to him. So he accepted, which made Minhyuk satisfied. He added that not to make his mother too suspicious he would tell her that the two of them were really invested in their work on the play and that they wanted more time to spend on it even after school.

“We'll make something up on why I can't ever come to your place instead, now I can't think about anything. She'll naturally ask you if you want to stay for dinner because she loves cooking for other people.”

Minhyuk looked at the clock hanging on the wall right above the blackboard and realized it was time to go. The boys packed up their things and left the classroom. As they were out of the main doors of the school, Minhyuk asked Jooheon if he wanted to go with him already starting that night, but he refused.

“It's my grandmother's birthday tonight so we're having a party. At least I get along with her. Also, maybe you should mention this to your mother before or she'll find it weird to suddenly see the kid you've punched hanging at her house...”

“Right, I will. I'll tell her we're friends now.”

Minhyuk was surprised to see Jooheon timidly smiling as he heard this. He wondered if he had any real friends at all, since he wouldn't consider the members of his gang as such. At least, he'd never seen them together much apart from when they were up to some mischief and probably now that Jooheon had gotten rid of that bad kid behaviour, they didn't have anything to share anymore.

“Well, have fun at the party and I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

He waved him goodbye and left. He was expecting at least a 'thank you' but he wasn't too disappointed when it didn't come. Maybe it would in the future.

His mother had to come pick him up with her car, so Minhyuk stood at the entrance, looking at his classmate's figure getting farther and farther away from him until it took a turn and disappeared.

He sighed thinking about what had just happened between them and the thought of Jooheon's parents neglecting him made his mind automatically shift to the thought of his father. Usually he avoided it because it hurt too much but he couldn't help but link his situation to Jooheon's. Sure, it wasn't exactly the same, since he still had his mother to take care of him and she was doing such a great job all alone that Minhyuk felt grateful every day that he was with her. He worked hard not to let the scar left by his father open again by pretending that there had been no wound at all but Jooheon's opening up to him had made all the stitches disappear, leaving him burning and bleeding. Also his mentioning his grandmother brought everything up again.

When he had to leave his hometown at the beginning of the school year, he couldn't understand why. He knew that the relationship between his parents had gotten worse, he was used to the fights and to his dad not coming back home several nights a week, so the divorce didn't come much as a surprise to him when they took the decision. But he thought that he would just go live with his mother in another house and he would still see his father sometimes, maybe on the weekend. Some of his friends' parents were divorced, too, and they had come to that kind of agreement. If it had to be like that, he wouldn't even mind. After all, what mattered wasn't really the relationship between them but what they felt about him, right? If they weren't happy together anymore, there wasn't much he could do about it. Sure, it would be sad not to live all together under the same roof, but at least he would stay with his mum, just as he wished, and he would go visit his father periodically and do the things they always did together as if nothing had changed. That was what he thought until his mother broke the news to him that they would move away and that his father was okay with them leaving. With separating from _him_.

“But mum, why can't we stay here?”

“Mum's found a new job. I'll be paid more and it'll be more fun to live in a big city, trust me.”

“What about my friends? And granny? Won't I be able to see dad anymore?”

“We'll come back to visit, okay? We'll be happy. Please, understand that I'm doing this to make us happy.”

It was his own granny that he was so reluctant to let go who revealed the reason behind his mother's decision to him before she herself could find the right moment to do it with more discretion. She had been cheated on and as soon as she had found out, not only had she decided to leave her husband but also to leave town and take their son away with her. His grandmother cried, telling him he didn't want him to go and swearing at his father for not fighting for him. In fact, his father didn't oppose at all and that was what hurt Minhyuk the most. He thought that he didn't care about him just as much as he hadn't cared for his mother when he slept with another woman. If he wanted another life with other people other than his son and his wife, he could have it. At first he had thrown tantrum after tantrum because he wanted to stay there but after his grandmother's revelation he accepted to move away with his beloved mother who he wanted to protect, deciding that he too would delete his father from his existence.

After finding out that her now ex husband's mother had spilt out the secrets she had wanted to be the one to share with her own son, Minhyuk's mother was all the more resolute in her decision to leave. So they did and now it had been a few months already since the beginning of their new life. And so far, it had been a happy one. Sure, sometimes his mother would dwell in the memories of the past twelve years of her married life and misery would hit her like a train but that couldn't be helped. As for Minhyuk, losing his father hurt but his mother's well-being was more important to him, so he decided to keep the pain for himself.

While he went over the memories of the last months of his family life in his head, his mother finally arrived to pick him up and the honk of her car shook him from his thoughts. He opened the door to the passenger seat and hopped in, and his mother started driving away, leading them back again to the stage where the drama of their life was playing and which would soon have to welcome another main character.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi again!  
I just wanted to add, as you can see, this is divided into two parts  
I don't want to spoil anything but since this first part is about childhood, I guess you can wonder what the second will be about  
for now I'm adapting the tags to what I've written so far but I'll update them as I go on  
honestly, I don't know when I'll be able to update but I really liked these first two chapters so I wanted to share them since the joohyuk tag is always so empty  
I hope I'll be able to write more soon though  
hope you've enjoyed chapter two as well as one


	3. 3

The first time Jooheon went to Minhyuk's house after school, his mother wasn't there. She usually did most of her work at home but that day she would be needed at the office all day, so she had told Minhyuk she couldn't come pick him up with her car as usual and he would have to walk home. He would also have to take care of the dinner on his own because she would come back quite late at night. When he heard about this, he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed since he had told Jooheon that his mother would make dinner for them for sure, while now he would be forced to feed him sandwiches since there wasn't anything else he was able to prepare. The fact that when he informed Jooheon about it he replied that sandwiches were good enough because he often ate them when he was out alone, made him feel even more frustrated. After all, his original plan was exactly for Jooheon to receive something better than what he was already used to.

He had even pondered about postponing everything to the following day when his mother would be home for sure but then he realized that there was something just as unusual that Jooheon needed more than a special meal: some company. While the night before he had been together with his family at his grandmother's birthday party, there would be nothing for him to do that night, so to avoid coming back home he would be out on the streets until midnight again without a doubt. Minhyuk couldn't allow that, so eventually he resigned to just do the best he could to satisfy the needs of his guest.

As they got there that afternoon, after a brief tour around Minhyuk's house, they settled in his room and started to think about the play since at school they hadn't been that productive. Needless to say, the change of environment didn't alter the situation much and after half an hour of pretending that their brains were actually in motion, they gave up and started to look for all kinds of distractions. Curious about his new friend, who he barely knew anything about, Jooheon started to roam around the room, trying to figure him out, checking everything from books on the shelves to posters on the walls to one thick diary-looking notebook on the bedside table. At one point, he laid his eyes on a framed picture hanging right beside a drawing of some anime he didn't know, and stood right in front of it. It was a photo of Minhyuk and his mother at the hospital, presumably on the day of his birth.

After staring at it for a few seconds without saying anything, placing particular attention on the older figure, he turned to Minhyuk. “How old was your mum when she gave birth to you?”

“She was just twenty.”

“So she's thirty-two now, right? I thought so. When I first saw her at the meeting I was amazed at how young she looked.”

Of course he was referring to the meeting that had been held at school just three weeks before concerning their fight. Minhyuk remembered thinking how older Jooheon's parents looked compared to his mother. He assumed they were around fifty, which meant that Jooheon's mother was almost forty when she gave birth to him. Thinking about it now, he wondered whether that great age gap between parents and son might be the reason of the former's neglect towards the latter. Maybe Jooheon had older siblings that his parents had wasted all their energies on and now they didn't want anything to do with caring about children anymore.

“Minhyuk, you don't have any brothers or sisters, do you?” Jooheon asked, looking around as if he was checking for hidden beds in that room, since the house only had two bedrooms and one was Minhyuk's mother's.

“No” he replied, and thought that was the chance to find out whether his theory might be correct. “Do you?”

“Just one older brother. He's thirty. He doesn't live at my place anymore because he works abroad so it's like I don't even have one. When I was born, he was already eighteen so he left town for university right away and we've barely lived under the same roof in all these years.”

Minhyuk thought how lonely Jooheon must have felt and couldn't help but pity him. He became all the more convinced that by asking Jooheon to spend time with him, he had done the right thing. For a second he really wondered whether his mother could adopt him for real but then he shook the idea off. It was ridiculous. First of all, certainly that was not how it worked. His parents needed to be dead or there must have been some serious problem like domestic violence or something of the sort for him to be taken away from them (that had happened to one kid he knew from his hometown, who had been placed in foster care because his parents were both abusive. That was when Minhyuk had first found out that not all children were loved by their parents). But more importantly, if his mother had become Jooheon's too, that would have made them brothers and somehow that idea of being Jooheon's brother was weird. It felt wrong and he rejected it right away. Being his friend would be more than enough.

Minhyuk suddenly realized that he hadn't asked anything about granny's party yet. Actually in the morning, Jooheon had ignored him in class (he had yet to understand why) so he hadn't had any chance to speak to him at all before they were left alone in the room after lessons were over. Because of his classmate giving him the cold shoulder, his mind had started to fly towards an imaginary reality where granny's party had been the key to the resolution of all of his friend's family issues, with a heart-to-heart talk between parents and son and a final, moving hug that had brought them back to being a happy family (if they had ever been. Minhyuk hadn't had the chance to investigate about that yet). For a moment, he had really believed in his fantasy and he was already getting depressed at the conviction that Jooheon wouldn't need him anymore after not even twenty-four hours after his proposal. But then, as soon as it was just the two of them, they had casually talked about Jooheon going to Minhyuk's house in the afternoon so he was relieved that nothing had changed at all, although he felt guilty about **egotistically** being glad that Jooheon's family's circumstances were still the same.

However, he still wanted to hear about granny's party so he asked him to tell him about the night before. He figured that at least some slightly more optimistic recount must come out from a birthday celebration, even without a definitive positive resolution of all the family issues.

“You know, it was nice. It was me, her, my uncle and aunt, and my cousins. My brother came too, actually, with his wife. We had pizza and cake and we gave her a new clock for her kitchen, since the old one had stopped working, and some new blouses and a jersey. Actually the adults put most of the money but I also contributed a little...”

Minhyuk was puzzled when he heard the list of the members of the party. His brother was there? And what about his parents?

“I thought you said you barely met with your brother. And where were your mum and dad?”

“They had other plans. As for my brother, he had already come visit last month but he's here again for some reason.”

Minhyuk wondered what plan you could possibly have on a Friday night that you couldn't cancel, not even for granny's birthday party. But after all, considering what Jooheon had told him about his parents constantly leaving him alone, he wasn't that surprised either. What was truly shocking was his brother being there and the fact that he had been returning home more often. Maybe, he assumed, he was just like many of those people who left their country at a young age and as they grew older started to miss their hometowns and their families and wished to see them more than just once or twice a year, and since they finally had a job and enough money they could afford to travel back home more frequently. Again, also this other hypothesis didn't make Minhyuk's heart leap with joy. With Jooheon meeting with his brother more, he would have someone even closer to share his troubles with and Minhyuk's presence would be useless. 

But even this time, Jooheon unknowingly came to reassure him, making him feel both pleased and selfish once again. “Anyways, it's not like anything's changed. We are still distant. Sometimes I wish he could have been younger so maybe we would be closer and have some hobbies in common or something like that.”

He remembered Jooheon mentioning that when he wasn't home, he often went to the basketball court. “Like playing basketball?”

“Yeah, for example.”

An idea came to Minhyuk's mind. He suddenly rushed to his desk and reached for something on the first shelf just above it, where his computer games were. He took out one and showed its cover to Jooheon. It was a basketball game, the only sports themed one he had. He had used it only once so it was still as new.

“Do you want to play?”

He barely knew how to play at all but at least it would give him the chance to both change topics, since it was clear that he wasn't able to handle conversations about Jooheon's family whithout his mind starting to wander, and also possibly make his friend happy. Jooheon accepted, enthusiastically.

As expected, Jooheon was terribly good at it and he couldn't refrain from laughing at just how bad Minhyuk sucked instead. This latter had to bear with the mockery but at least his friend was having fun and his family had been forgotten. After an hour or so, they stopped playing, since it was obvious at that point that Jooheon would win all the matches.

“You're really bad at it” commented Jooheon, to which Minhyuk replied by sticking his tongue out at him. “You don't seem like one who's into sports. I guess that the person who bought you this didn't know you that well.”

Minhyuk stopped smiling at these remarks and immediately his expression turned somber. As soon as he had held that game in his hands, he had been reminded of that person but for Jooheon's sake he had forced himself not to think about them. Playing had also helped him distract himself but as soon as his friend mentioned them, all the pain came back in an instant.

Jooheon realized that he had probably said something wrong. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.”

Minhyuk shook his head. “No, it's alright. I got this from my dad, you know.”

Although Jooheon had told him a lot about his family, so far Minhyuk hadn't mentioned anything about his own to him and to be honest he hadn't meant to at all. In any case, Jooheon already knew that he only lived with his mother because they had moved there after his parents' divorce, so he believed there wasn't much else to say. Or rather, there was, but he kept his feelings bottled up inside without revealing them to anyone. He only had the diary he had been keeping for some months now as an outlet. And for the time being, that would do.

He recovered his smile right away not to make Jooheon worry. He didn't need to know that he wasn't talking to his dad anymore after all. Although Minyuk felt a string connecting him to the other boy because of their family situations, that didn't mean that he wished to put further weight on the other's shoulders. He could carry his own all by himself without a problem. “It's just that he is great at sports. Not just basketball but also football, and baseball, and everything-ball, basically. He wants to share that passion with me but I don't care about any of that.”

It wasn't hard for Jooheon to figure out that the boy had no intention to have a chat about his father. He wasn't convinced by his words but he decided to believe him anyways. “What are you interested in, then?”

“Books, movies, music... just anything but sports, really.”

“Okay, then we're watching a movie tomorrow. What kinds do you like?”

“Action ones are my favourite.”

“Mine too! I'll bring some dvds, then you can choose one. Deal?”

He streched out his hand and Minhyuk shook it with a big smile. He was glad to hear that Jooheon wanted to come visit again. Like that, he could finally meet his mum properly and finally try her cooking. “Deal. What about having dinner now?”

“Alright. Just... I know you've lost like four games in a row but please, don't put any poison in my sandwich.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, I'm back!  
I'm not too sure about the way I wrote this chapter... it's not that crucial as a chapter in terms of action so possibly that's why I'm not so sure about it but after re-writing it three or four times and including the main points I needed to convey I thought "well alright, I think it'll do"  
so yeah, I hope it did do


End file.
